I was his, and he was mine.
I cried out, holding him against me, cloves and spice anchoring me to the realm of the living for a moment.
Silas’s teeth sank into my neck, drinking deeply as another wave of ecstasy pulsed, and I faded again.Drifting to the vastness of pleasure, soaked into my body until Silas faded away and so did the troubles that the statue overhead reminds us of.
Silas released his hold, panting as bright crimson drips from his mouth. What I once had thought to be garish and barbaric I gladly held in the palm of my hand.
“I love you.”
Silas nuzzled my hand. “Say it again, Little Dove.”
I kissed him, breathing against him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said against my lips, holding me tight. He lifted me up into his arms, his body warm against the blistering cold. “Come, Little Dove, let’s get you warmed up.”
Twenty-Four
Icurled myfingers around the bound leather of the book, the smooth crisp pages worn from time. I searched the library for the country of Amaris to find a clue to Silas’s name. My search yielded nothing besides this journal. Nearly identical to the one back in my room—except there were less letters and correspondence, appearing to be written by one person.
From one, there is none but from more there is the beauty that even the gods have never told before. This is what Cecilia had told me this morning. It was a saying that her mother used to say. Her mother died due to the war that rages on near our borders. I must put a stop to the war before more unnecessarybloodshed and deaths mount. I can already feel their deaths on my hands since Father died.
I am unworthy of the crown.
The last line looped in my head. I pictured a lost man trying to figure out how to run a kingdom in the midst of turmoil. The death of his father, his lover, and the mounting pressure from the council was too much to bear. This Narcisa character seemed to have ulterior motives despite stating what was “best” for the people.
I slammed the journal shut, squeezing the bridge of my nose. I had hoped for clues, for places that even Silas had not checked in the hundreds of years he had been held up in the dusty castle.
“What about this book?” Ebony spouted from the top shelf, her translucent body slithering down with a book. “This one seems to tell a similar tale to the one that you are looking for.”
I flipped through pages, finding that it was nothing more than a secondary source to what I was after. “Unfortunately, no.” I slammed the book shut and squeezed the bridge of my nose.
I had hoped there was something Silas had missed. Something to point to try and solve the begotten mystery, but there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing. Any mention of Silas before the curse had either been blotted out by black stains of fragile documents or were missing.
Ebony’s ghostly fingers picked the book up and placed it up on the table. “Cheer up, Valeria. We’ll find it soon enough.”
I turned to her. “Aren’t you scared? What if I don’t do something and you disappear?”
This had been my second look into the stacks. We had started that morning in the study to find Silas’s personal collection lacking any historical context of what happened to predate his curse. Even with the historical collection, it seemed more like an impossible task.
Ebony floated down next to me, appearing to sit upon the soft cushion. Cold wafted from her iridescent form, biting into my long-sleeve dress. Books scattered across the floor, bits of papers rustling against my feet as I strode to the staircase to pull out another book from the spiral tower leading to the locked door.
Ebony wiped her hands onto her apron, forever stained with blood. “Of course I’m scared. Most are. We are scared of the unknown and where we all go after we die. We have existed for centuries in this castle, and we don’t know life without it.”
Which meant there was no way of telling what would happen if Silas disappeared and the castle was destroyed.
The morning sun passed through her form making it, so she was nearly transparent. The sunlight bounced from painted glass, shedding a spotlight onto the lone piano keys. If I did not find the way to break Silas’s curse, there would be no more leisurely playing if the castle collapsed and, with it, only sorrowful tunes would haunt us underneath the rubble.
I strode to the bookcase, fingering spines of worn titles where the faded print no longer told the titles ofthe books themselves. I walked along the case, climbing the wrought-iron stairs. Thousands of books lined the shelves, covering an array of subjects with historical references appearing older than the heavy gray lines. A book at the top of the tower was untouched by the dust.
I touched the spine. The rough, broken cover crumbled underneath my finger. I carefully extracted the book from the shelf, the jacket disintegrating. The raised lettering was etched out of existence, but in my hands, it didn’t matter.
“Valeria.” Ebony floated up. Her chilled presence added to the goose bumps along my skin. Dark orbs gazed down at the open page where a silver key was tucked between its decaying pages. “Where do you think that goes?”
I tucked the book back into its hole, grasping the key in hand, and flew up the stairs to the lone door at the end of the long climb. The door at the top called to me, my skin itching with the memory of their invasion.
I placed the key into the lock, turning it until a hard click set into place, the cold biting into my palm. “Ebony, whatever is behind this door was hidden for a reason. Whatever happens, I need you to pull me out at the very last possible second.”
Ebony’s form flickered, black orbs scrunched together in worry. “Whatever is in there is best to be forgotten. Why don’t we wait for Silas? I am sure thathe can—”
